Olympic Park transforming London's gritty East End

An aerial view of the Olympic Stadium which will host the athletics events during the London 2012 Olympic Games on July 26, 2011 in London, England.Photo by
Tom Shaw

It would hardly be the fond imaginings of any tourism board today, but visitors are still channelling the inquisition of American author Henry James's boat trip into the East End of Victorian London.

Fast forward to the 21st-century, and I've joined a group of locals and tourists from as far away as Hong Kong, Bangladesh, Australia and South Africa eager to see the rise of the new Olympic Park, ahead of the XXX Olympiad being held this summer in one of the poorest postcodes in the English capital.

No matter how you cut it, the once-industrial epicentre still has little of the glamour of the media tart that is the West End, with its hub of high-end hotels, eateries and theatres. But the eastern cousin is set to steal more than a few column inches by showcasing a history and transformation that's no less exciting even on this cool wintry day.

We effortlessly find Fred - our buoyant Blue Badge Tourist Guide (the professional qualification for sightseeing guides in London) who's helpfully emblazoned with a Union Jack baseball cap - at the heart of this regeneration blitz. It's not an altogether pretty sight: outside the Bromley-By-Bow Tube station meeting place is a busy highway; opposite, a derelict ripe-for-development block with graffiti and smashed-in windows greets us, too.

Not surprisingly, the former teacher scoots us quickly past both, for less than a block away the real drama of the tour unfurls. With an introduction to myriad winding canals of the Bow Back Rivers of the River Lea and its cobbled paths, one of the area's star turns looms ahead: a robust brick 18th-century tidal mill - complete with slate turrets, gleaming white clock tower, and architecturally arched windows. The juxtaposition between the earlier grit and this serene vignette à la 1776 leaves us speechless.

If only James could have seen how spruced up it is all looking now. With the House Mill's original role in harnessing the water to grind grain for a famous London gin distillery long gone, its multi-stories are today a mix of museum and business - and the waterway surrounding it conjures up not a jot of "blackness, duskiness, crowdedness." Heck, even the cormorants on the rooftops signal that there's fish once again in those cleaned-up canals (just as the return of salmon signalled the de-pollution of the neighbouring Thames).

Here, the energy of the Olympics is already strangely palpable this Saturday morning. Like a scene from an audition for Idol or The X Factor, a torrent of chipper lithe bodies are skipping out of the nearby 3 Mills Studio. The cavernous shooting location for films such as Slumdog Millionaire, Brick Lane, and Lock, Stock and two Smoking Barrels is testing out potential candidates for the opening and closing ceremonies - to be whittled down to 450 from 10,000 hopefuls.

Less athletically, we stroll on for the next few minutes through a newly-laid park with runners, cyclists and families walking out on once-abandoned land. Come the sunshine, there's even the potential for a spot of ping-pong with the arrival of stone tables complete with nets ready for action. On the horizon are the industrial meccas such as the so-dubbed Cathedral of Sewers, a Gothic behemoth built for the 19th-century's arrival of the sewage system by Joseph Bazalgette; the giant skeletonlike circular frames of the old gas works; and the giant Bryant & May match factory.

By the intricately painted narrowboats and a part of the canal called the Prescott Channel, Fred even recounts how Doric column stones from the famous giant Euston Arch - which had 'disappeared' during the restoration of the central train station in the 60s but later turned up in the canal where it had been dumped to plug a leak - were raised as part of the Olympic overhaul. (Monty Python's Michael Palin now heads a campaign to have it restored to Euston.) For the East End, many of its own restorations are already in place. We can't miss one of the many tower blocks - this is called Tower Hamlets after all - that's been recoloured in the five Olympic hues (blue, yellow, black, green and red) or the terrace homes owned by the local council that have been repainted and re-roofed.

It all makes for an intriguing precursor to the new Olympic playpen, which suddenly makes its debut around our final corner. We head up towards the Greenway- a strip of revitalized land from which the View Tube offers a corking panorama of the recycled white poles of the exhaustive Olympic Stadium (which even gave David Beckham "goosebumps" when he saw it for the first time), the Water Polo Arena and the wave-shaped roofed (and later its nighttime shimmering-yellow windows) of the Aquatics Centre.

Much may still look like a building site - with trucks still piling in and hard hats pinballing everywhere - but this no less an official tourist site with more than 100,000 folk making the pilgrimage. For my Australian walkers, they knew they would not be back for the Olympics, but were intrigued to see the park. ("London's a bit like Sydney was before the Olympics - a bit worried about how it will be," the senior says, "but that will all change once they start.") For a Parisian family, it was a chance to see just why London won over their bid from the City of Lights ("The Entente Cordiale is still in place," the father quips. "We love this city.")

Our collective reward of the two-hour trip? Seeing up close the snaking red steel of the Orbit sculpture by Turner Prizewinning artist Anish Kapoor. Okay, it's looking not unlike a giant roller-coaster on its side, but it will eventually boast the five rings synonymous with the Games and a dining area on top of its vertiginous 115 metres, the largest piece of public artwork in Britain. Kapoor's design riffs on the Tower Hamlets theme, challenging the normal linear form seen all around. (As with all things Olympics, sponsorship rules supreme - it will be known as ArcelorMittal Orbit, with a hefty nod to its chief benefactor, steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal.)

Along with Westfield shopping centre (Europe's largest urban shopping mall) at nearby Stratford, which also offers another cool viewing spot from John Lewis - a nationwide department store, the Orbit's legacy is as an Eiffel Tower of the East End. Long after the 2012 Games, organizers are banking that this and plenty more will be a magnet for both inquiring and fastidious minds to the East End for many decades. Plenty, it seems, with apologies to Henry James, to "initiate you into the fastest, the highest, strongest, the intensely Olympic character of London."

Lucy Hyslop is a Vancouver-based writer and winner of Canadian Tourism Commission's Top Travel Story award for 2011.

USEFUL TIPS IF YOU GO TO LONDON'S OLYMPIC PARK

Join the Blue Badge Tourist Guides Olympic tour every day at 11 a.m. at Bromley-by-Bow for £9 (approx. $14): toursof-2012sites.com (Book ahead.) There is a free tour that takes you on a bus inside the park run by the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), although these are heavily over-subscribed. Call 011 44-300 2012 001 for details.

Check out the viewing gallery on the top floor of the View Tube (theviewtube.co.uk) on the Greenway. Rent a bike (011 44-20 8980 7998); have a coffee and a bite at the Container Café (011 44-7834 275 687).

For more substantial epicurean and artistic offerings, walk to its sister café and gallery space, Counter Café, around 15 minutes' away at Stour Space, 7 Roach Road, Hackney Wick (thecountercafe.co.uk). Also, see its next-door neighbour, Forman's (formansfishisland.com), the pink-hued (yes, like a salmon - it specializes in smoking the fish) building that's recognizable from most corners of the Olympic Park. It also houses a gallery and restaurant. Both venues have glorious views of the stadium across the canal.

Remember how the Sea to Sky Highway was frequently closed in spots for improvements before the 2010 Olympics? Before you start your London journey, check for Tube closures at tfl.gov.uk.

Nearest Docklands Light Railway (DLR) station to the Greenway and Olympic Park is Pudding Mill Lane or Stratford international station; or by Tube to Bromley-by-Bow or Stratford If you can't resist shopping, head straight to the new Westfield shopping centre at Stratford (uk.westfield.com/stratfordcity).

The House Mill at Three Mills is open every Sunday from May to October and on the first Sundays in March, April and December. Costs £3 (approx. $4.70) (housemill.org.uk)

For hotels, in East London there's the Radisson Edwardian New Providence Wharf (radissonedwardian.com) or between the neighbouring City of London and the West End, a good spot is One Aldwych (onealdwych.com). Good restaurants in town include Providores, 109 Marylebone High Street (theprovidores.co.uk), the Savoy (especially for its tea; fairmont.com/savoy), and Indigo at One Aldwych.

If you're feeling homesick, head to Dulwich Picture Gallery for its much-praised exhibition on the Group of Seven (dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk).

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